World Series Preview

The World Series -- the only great American sporting event played after midnight on the East Coast -- starts tomorrow. Among the sort of people who care about such things, there will be a lot of moaning about how terrible the TV ratings will be. And the ratings will be terrible. Some will blame this on the fact that Texas and San Francisco are western teams, and that western teams don't draw on the East Coast. But I don't remember the NFL having problems getting people to watch the Cowboys and the 49ers when those were the two best teams in the league. And I doubt if the NBA would have trouble getting people to watch an NBA final between the Lakers and the Heat. The problem here isn't where the Giants and the Rangers are located; it's that the Giants and the Rangers aren't very good. Yes, they have some good players, and yes, they've both been hot lately -- but these are not worthy pennant winners. Under the old system, neither of these teams would have made the playoffs. The Giants would have finished second to the Braves, and the Rangers would have finished second to the Twins. And that would have been that.

I realize, of course, that the Rangers and Giants knocked off favored teams to get to the World Series. But those were flukey results that say more about baseball than about their quality. The biggest problem with baseball is that it takes a lot of games to determine which team is really better. Since the Nats moved from Montreal to Washington, they have played six games against the Yankees; they are 4-2 in those games. That does not mean that the Nats were better than the Yankees.

So we are left with two flukey pennant winners who will probably never be heard from again after this season. Under these circumstances, the World Series has relatively little meaning for neutral fans. We might learn something about Tim Lincecum, or Cliff Lee, but this Series will most likely be forgotten very soon.

That doesn't mean it won't be worth watching. The 1997 World Series between Florida and Cleveland featured two teams that never made it back, as did the 2002 World Series between Anaheim and San Francisco. But those Cinderella Series each went seven games and were extremely entertaining. We will hope that the same thing happens here.

As to who is going to win, I am picking the Rangers, mainly on the grounds that they seem to have deeper hitting. And Cliff Lee.